Page 99 of Wicked Ends
I walked along the hall with stress filling every inch of me. This was a moment I’d been dreading for far too long. That one night, it would go too far. One night, one moment, and the time to help would be over forever.
I reached the bedroom and went inside. Claire’s feet stuck out around the end of the bed, unmoving.
Stealing myself, I advanced. I couldn’t let this happen again. We had been so close.
I reached her. She was lying with her face down, her body splayed.
I crouched next to her and drew her hair back from her face.
“Claire, it’s me, Arianna.”
She was quiet for a terrifying second, and it felt like the world stopped turning.
“I’m okay.”
Her quiet grunt brought tears to my eyes.
“I lost it for a second… I’m awake now, but I think my arm is broken, and maybe some ribs.”
“I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“No. No ambulance. You know what happened last time… Dale’s buddies at the police department told him all about it, and he was worse than ever.”
I held my tongue. I had nothing I could say to that, because it was true. We lived in a corrupt little town where the sheriff’s department covered for the good old boys time and again. Even though my brother had retired early from being a cop, officially because he wanted to start his own PI business, unofficially because he’d been drunk on the job one too many times, they still considered him one of their own.
“I’ll drive you then, the next city over.” I got my hands under her and lifted her carefully.
She nodded, wincing as she clutched her hand to her chest.
My brother had been abusing his wife since the moment she’d gotten pregnant. I’d been eighteen, about to finish high school, and still living with him. It had only gotten worse once Lulu was born, but everyone had been trapped by then. By the town and its corrupt cops who would ignore Dale’s wife’s plight, by the vulnerability of having a baby to care for and a husband who controlled all the money, by the way people looked the other way at the sight of a mother pushing a stroller with two black eyes.
A quiet sob sounded, and Lulu was there, eyes frozen with horror at the sight of the blood running freely down her mother’s face.
“It’s okay, baby, everything is okay.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Dale’s voice sent my blood to ice.
I spun around, but I wasn’t quick enough. My brother’s slap sent me and Claire flying to the floor.
“Daddy!” Lulu screamed, her eyes huge and haunted.
“Get out of here!” he barked at her and advanced on me. “You stupid bitch, always causing trouble. I found out today that you’ve been trying to get Grandma’s money without me.”
My grandma had left me a large amount of money, something just for me, held in a trust until my twenty-fourth birthday. I had been waiting patiently for the time to collect it to come around. The money was what kept us from running. I couldn’t get Claire and Lulu somewhere safe and far from here without money. It was impossible. Then, with my twenty-fourth birthday rushing toward us, Dale had found out. I had no idea how he had, but he had. I suspected the lawyer handling the inheritance. My birthday had come and gone, and with Dale demanding the money, I’d done the only thing I could have—tied the money up in endless paperwork. Over the ensuing months, he slowly forgot to check daily if the money was freed from its administrative chains. Claire and I decided to go as soon as the money was given to me, and that would have been tomorrow.
Tomorrow. We’d come so close.
“She left it to me,” I spat at him. I needed that money. Without it, there was no fresh start for Claire and Lulu. There was no future for any of us.
“I don’t care! It’s mine. It should be mine. I had to put up with both those old fucks for far too long.”
“Why should it? You hated them—it was obvious!” I managed to get out, years of anger and resentment boiling over.
“Is that right?” Dale raged, slapping me hard enough to send my vision dark.
I staggered, falling into the wall. My head spun.
“You’re as stupid as they were. So fucking stupid they didn’t have their car serviced on time. Do you know how easy it is to fake a brake failure?”
